Facebooking

I like Facebook, but I think Facebook has exacerbated my mid-life crisis. In searching for old high school friends, college roommates and former colleagues I have discovered something really disturbing...most of my friends CHILDREN are the ones using Facebook! This just drives home the fact that I am...old. I think a special Facebook application should be developed for mid-lifers, like myself. To be really successful with my age-group, there would need to be a few different features, though. For example, there should be a photo edit function built right in that allows you to 'touch up' your profile pictures, thereby eliminating those pesky visible signs of aging. There should also be a warning device that alerts you when a prospective 'friend' has turned into a rabid right-wing politico, health food advocate or has overachieving children they constantly talk about ('I know she's only 22, but she is receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award in nuclear-rocket science-applied mathematics from NASA ' this week. Next week, she is blah, blah, blah'). There also needs to be a rule about overuse; for example, 20 posts in an hour is a lot...especially when they are obscure and random comments about...nothing. Facebook needs to suggest to these users an alternative outlet to express themselves...poetry, perhaps? Or, maybe just their own blog!

Getting Older

I had lunch with a really important person in my life a week or so ago. She sort of reminds me of my Grandmother. I remember having to go grocery shopping with Grandma, and it taking her FOREVER to make her selections. I distinctly remember her selecting each green bean from the big bin, one at a time, inspecting each to make sure it was not blemished and nice and crisp and fresh. While searching for the perfect beans, she would lecture me on what characteristics each vegetable and fruit should possess to be considered worthy of taking it home (her advice was apropos to men, as well, as I determined in later years). I would stand there, shifting from foot to foot, squirming, trying desperately to listen politely and attentively, when all I really wanted to do was hitch onto the big metal shopping cart and race up and down the aisles in the brightly lit store, jump on the cart and have the ride of a lifetime.

I was grocery shopping today and as I stood in front of the bin of green beans, I couldn't help but laugh at myself because I was picking each bean, one at a time and making sure it was good enough to bring home. I guess getting older brings more changes than I realized. Sure, the physical changes are evident, but the things that make you think 'Holy cow, I'm an adult now - how did that happen?' well, those changes are hard to accept, too. Now that I'm older and grown up (sort of) I often wonder about such life changing challanges and questions, such as:

• when did beer get so expensive?
• why does the Juniors section at the Belk suddenly sell Barbie doll like clothes that even though they are my size, look absolutely ridiculous on me?
• why am I even thinking about re-landscaping the yard?

It's like all of a sudden I have morphed into my GRANDMOTHER! I have missed turning into my parents (who were pretty cool) and have gone directly to the geriatric generation. Which really rots, because all I still really want to do is hitch onto the big metal shopping cart and go for a ride!

Home, Sweet Home

I love where I live...Just yesterday, I went swimming in the river. I can catch my own dinner most of the year. I know my neighbors. I can drive into town secure that no one is going to flip me the bird, cuss at me or try and beat me out at the light. My son can walk home from school. When customers from my husband's business call, no matter what the reason, they ask "How are you? How's the family?" and they listen to the answer. We have some decent restaurants, a Saks Fifth Avenue outlet and a Gap nearby. I can sweet talk the lady at the lunch meat counter in the local grocery store into slicing my Boars Head bologna extra thin. In short, I really love where I live.

But...every once in a while, I don't know, maybe it's this mid-life crisis thing, I really really want to be in New York City again! Like tonight, I read that these huge bands that I have always wanted to see live all performed together at Madison Square Garden (just the 'garden', to those in the know) last night. I mean, I'm talking mega bands like U2, the Stones, Jeff Beck, Metallica... It must have been the ultimate party! And here I am...

I drove some 380 miles to Tampa, Florida to see The Who last spring. I have wanted to see this band perform live for most of my life, but never thought I would get the chance because they were getting so old. The show was cancelled because the singer got a cold. They re-scheduled the concert for two days later. Like I could just spend the week in Tampa...so I gave up the tickets and came home for my son and work and life. So I'm thinking... this is what I want to do...this is what I need to do: Go to a real concert, scream my head off, drink beer, hold up a cigarette lighter (lit, of course) so the band personally knows how much I am enjoying their music and 'make-out' with my husband during the slow song! Ahhh, long live my youth!